Welcome to my blog---an eyes-open, no-holds-barred exploration of Western and Eastern spirituality, mindfulness, philosophy and literature. A member of the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association, I lectured at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry to mental health workers for 14 years and at the University of Technology, Sydney to law students for 16 years. My interests include metaphysics, the psychology of religion, transformative ritual, mythology and addiction recovery.

Monday, June 24, 2013

WATCH WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR ‘I’

‘I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace,and evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.’ (Isaiah 45:7)

This verse from the Bible has troubled many people over the centuries. ‘Is God, the God of love and light, responsible for darkness and evil as well?’ they ask.

I am not a Bible-believing Christian, although I was brought up as one. Some 30 years ago I was introduced to Christian metaphysics in the form of New Thought---and my whole understanding of the Bible---and God---changed forever. Some would see that as a bad thing---as a fall from grace, backsliding, even total apostasy---but I see it otherwise. I see it as a positive and life-affirming thing. Now, one thing I learned from my study of metaphysics was that the words ‘the Lord’ refer, not to God directly, but to one’s understanding or concept of God, which, for better or for worse, will have a great bearing on what happens to us and how we view it. Take, for example, the verse that says that ‘the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart’ (Ex 9:12). Now, God did not really harden Pharaoh’s heart. Pharaoh hardened his own heart, by attaching his ‘I’ to hard-heartedness, obstinacy, and stubbornness.

Moses, standing before the burning bush, asked God His name, so he could tell the Israelites who sent him. God replied:

I AM THAT I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'‘ God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. (Ex 3:14-15)

God is the Great ‘I AM’---pure Be-ing, timeless, spaceless, ageless, and without face, form or figure---but which is forever entering into time and space as each living thing, taking form in and as that very thing. Life manifests itself in each of us, as us. Each one of us is both an 'inlet' and an 'outlet' of life's self-livingness (or self-expression). The ‘us’ in us---the ‘am-ness’---is not separate from life, rather it is life, or being-ness, itself unfolding from one moment to the next. Now, here is something very important---we think, feel, and act out of that which, in essence, we are (the ‘I am’ in us) whenever we use our intellect, emotions, and will. All parts of us are one with the wholeness of our being. Whenever we affirm ‘I am …’ we are affirming our being-ness, our I am-ness, as well. When we say, ‘I am tired,’ we attach our I am-ness to tiredness. When say, ‘I am strong,’ we attach our ‘I am-ness’ to strength. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘We are what we think all day long.’

So, ‘the Lord’ is nothing more nor less than the activity of your ‘I am-ness’ in you, from one moment to the next. Thus, you need to be very careful what you do with your ‘I am-ness.’ If you attach it to the thought of weakness or tiredness, don’t be surprised if you feel weak or tired, or weaker or more tired than you were before. Metaphysically, ‘the Lord’ is the creative power of life and thought operating within us, and as we understand it. So, this is what we must do if we want to ‘elevate’ our state of consciousness:

Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. (Jn 4:35)

We are told to lift up our eyes---to look up. Notice the reference to the ‘fields’? The fields---that's the 'place' where things grow, where new life takes root and flourishes. It is a metaphorical reference to what is called in metaphysics the plane of manifestation---a fancy way of referring to your mind, and your state of consciousness, the 'place' where things ‘grow,’ or ‘decay.’ so to speak. In order to ‘lift up’ one’s eyes, we must make a conscious, directed, impulse toward self-expression, that is, identifying our ‘I am-ness’ with what we seek to have expressed through us. Here’s another Bible verse that is pertinent:

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all persons unto me. (Jn 12:32)

Metaphysically speaking, the ‘I’ referred to in the above verse is you, or, more specifically, your ‘I am,’ or ‘I am-ness.’ It is a reference to the core part of you, and to your centre or focus of consciousness. The ‘earth’ refers to one’s present state of consciousness which is more-or-less uninspired and uninspiring. However, if you make a decision to lift up---that means, exalt---your ‘I am’ (or ‘I’) by your thoughts, you will climb, so to speak, upon a new vision of yourself, and you will draw ‘all persons’ (that is, all the various thoughts and feelings pertaining to your mental conception) unto you. A veritable ‘ascension’ in consciousness! Divine Science minister and author Dr Joseph Murphy (pictured right) used to say, ‘We go where our vision is.’ So, lift up your eyes, and lift up your I am. I used the word ‘exalt’ above. The Greek word for the phrase ‘lift up’ in Jn 12:32 is translated ‘exalt’ some 14 times and ‘lift up’ some 6 times in the New Testament. We ‘lift up’ (exalt) the ‘I’ in us when we say ‘yes’ to life, or, more particularly, to all that is positive, noble and good. We ‘lift up’ (exalt) the ‘I’ in us when we are open to the possibility of growth, positive change, and psychological mutation:

… whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Phil 4:8)

It is always the case that certain things have to ‘die’ in us in order for the ‘I’ in us to be lifted up or exalted. Elsewhere in the Bible we are told to ‘magnify’ the Lord. That means more-or-less the same thing as to ‘exalt.’ Metaphysically speaking, it means that we are to hold fast to our vision, and to whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

Lift up your 'I' from the earth. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields.

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